If the Information Professional was an Apple product…

August 20, 2014

from “Library Science, not Library Silence”

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of adding information professionals to digital asset management teams. While the rest of us are focused on the how-much and how-to of making a new DAM fly, it’s an information professional’s job to ask, What are you trying to do?

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If the Information Professional was an Apple product, however, the campaign messages might look like these:

• All the info you need — even if you don’t know what to ask
• Roadblocks bulldozed before you arrive — even when you’re just wandering
• It’s the “Preemptive Intelligence Analyst” tattoo Siri would get, if she could just decide on a design

Think about that last one: preemptive intelligence analyst. Now, there’s a specialty you don’t see on many LinkedIn profiles. But wouldn’t it get your attention? Tomorrow’s preemptive intelligence analysts are today living behind titles like Librarian, Archivist and others that employers interpret as, “underappreciated grade school educator willing to work for peanuts because it’s for the Greater Good.” And until the Library Science industry mobilizes and starts making noise about more than just budget cuts, this is where information professionals will remain.

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Many smart people, like information professionals, imagine the way things ought to be and they refuse to accept anything less. Rather than adapt and capitalize, they cower and complain. Or just cower.

While “UX Designers” and “Marketing Technologists” are surfing the Information Wave all the way to the 6-figure top, information professionals are watching the evolution of The New World Order of Technology from the shore. Content to accept that the water’s riches were meant for others, info pros have doused themselves in SPF-1000, donned sun-shielding hats the size of flying saucers, and sit patiently awaiting their turn.

In other words, the Information Professional community sucks at marketing. In fact, they make the same giant marketing mistake that is made by so many companies: They assume that marketing is silly or beneath them, or they say they just don’t have the time. Some have even admitted to me that they wouldn’t know where to begin to learn to market themselves.

If only there was a place where someone could go and access free information. You know, like a building where there are tons of books, or even an online search tool. If these things did exist, information professionals would finally be able to find the marketing information they need to alter the course of their profession.

Until then, what we have are lost budgets, decreasing job opportunities, and predictions of dim futures for holders of MLIS or similar degrees. It’s gotten so bad that some forward-thinking members of the Information Professional community are sounding the alarm.

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It’s time for you information professionals out there to start telling a story that actually interests us. We need to see more than just a modest participation in Digital Asset Management. We need you to become bold about the value you offer. We need you to blog about DAM vs. DAM under your influence. And we need you to stop patting one another on the back for having attended Library Science webinars about the future of microdata — that’s not enough.

Come out of the library closet and show us how fabulous you are. Sell us on the value you provide. Make us beg to involve you and fear losing you. Market yourselves.

URL: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/digital-asset-management/library-science-not-library-silence-026230.php